Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

Afghanistan

07/14/2014

SAN ANTONIO — A month after arriving in San Antonio for the third and final stage of his rehabilitation process, former prisoner of war Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl went to work at a desk job Monday at U.S. Army North in San Antonio.

He'll perform administrative duties at the headquarters on Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, but it was unclear what precisely his job would entail.

“He's going to be doing soldier duties commensurate with his rank and qualifications,” said Don Manuszewski, a spokesman for Army North. “Like anybody else, he'll go through a period of training to go through our processes and procedures.”

The move ends six weeks of closely scrutinized counseling, four of them in San Antonio under an Army South program designed to slowly ease former prisoners back into society. He is living in noncommissioned officers quarters on Fort Sam and can come and go as he pleases from the post.

07/07/2014

NEW BRAUNFELS — Jake Hixson was to be Sgt. Thomas Spitzer's best man at his wedding, but instead gave his eulogy Monday at St. Paul Lutheran Church before a crowd that spilled into a lobby, while Patriot Guard riders stood outside on a hot afternoon.

The service was followed by a motorcade along Interstate 35 that saw people waiting at an overpass to salute Spitzer and his burial at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.

Friends recalled Spitzer as a young man who hewed to an honor code that prompted him to volunteer for a second tour of Afghanistan's most contested province, Helmand, where more coalition troops — 951 — have died than in any other. They searched for an upside to the end of a promising life and found it in the way he lived.

“We are left here today to honor a young man who in his 23 years ... lived life to the fullest,” said the Rev. Don Ofsdahl. “He was more interested in the quality of life than in the quantity of years.”

07/02/2014

SAN ANTONIO — The Army said Wednesday that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the American POW released in a prisoner swap with the Taliban, has gone into San Antonio for dinners and other excursions, and that he has been welcomed by people he meets.

So far, Bergdahl has left Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston about 10 times as part of a carefully staged plan to help him readjust to freedom.

“I can't give you specifics, just because I don't want people camping out at those places, but he's gone to restaurants, he's gone to supermarkets, he's gone to stores out in town and he's gone to the same places on post,” Army South spokeswoman Arwen Consaul said.

06/13/2014

SAN ANTONIO — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, on American soil for the first time after five years of captivity, joined the ranks of patients Friday at Brooke Army Medical Center, but he wasn't a typical soldier on the mend there.

The Army won't allow a television in his hospital room, and he isn't allowed yet to mingle and talk with other soldiers. Bergdahl is surrounded by experts trained to help former captives readjust. He hasn't asked to talk with his parents, who waged a well-publicized campaign to secure his freedom.

And after 12 days at an Air Force hospital in Germany, Bergdahl also isn't aware of the controversy that has exploded across the country about the circumstances of his capture and release.

SAN ANTONIO — Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in a prisoner swap after being held for five years by the Taliban, is expected to arrive Friday in San Antonio after spending more than a week in Germany.

“He is scheduled to arrive tomorrow,” said a defense official, who would not elaborate.

Bergdahl will be brought to the San Antonio Military Medical Center, where doctors will help him become reoriented after his years in captivity. He is expected to reunite with his parents here as part of what the military calls a reintegration process.

06/12/2014

SAN ANTONIO — A low-key homecoming is in store for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released in a controversial prisoner swap with the Taliban and will arrive Friday in San Antonio after two weeks in a German hospital.

Defense officials said a U.S. military aircraft left Ramstein Air Base on Thursday afternoon and was to land at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland early Friday.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said Bergdahl will continue his “reintegration process” in San Antonio after being held by the Taliban for five years. He was swapped for five Taliban prisoners on May 31 in Afghanistan.

06/20/2013

Army Lt. Col. Todd Clark was born in Albany, N.Y., but came home to Texas for good Wednesday.

Shot dead over the weekend by an Afghan National Army soldier, he was flown to San Antonio International Airport. There, a white-gloved U.S. Army
North honor guard slowly took his flag-draped casket off a jetliner to a
hearse as GIs and a Southwest Airlines pilot saluted. A ground crewman,
among about eight workers in all, held his right hand over his heart.

“There was silence on that tarmac and not one Southwest employee was moving,” said Lt. Col. Tim Beninato, an Army North spokesman. “And some put their hands over their chests, their hats were off and there was complete respect and reverence.”

Clark was a Texas A&M University graduate. His family decided
to bring his body to San Antonio because the school was a big part of
his life, Beninato said. On Friday, Clark will be buried at Fort Sam
Houston National Cemetery.

Clark, 40, of Evans Mills, N.Y., near Fort Drum, was on his second
tour in Afghanistan after surviving a roadside bomb attack there in July
2010, the Albany Times-Union reported.

He was an instructor with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan
and already held a Purple Heart when he was killed Saturday by one of
the men he was training.

Wearing dress blue service uniforms, the Army North contingent was led by its deputy commander for support.